THE FLATS — Fueled by a balanced offense, the Georgia Tech women’s basketball team picked up an 86-48 victory over Kennesaw State Wednesday night in McCamish Pavilion.
“I was really pleased with the balance in our scoring,” noted head coach MaChelle Joseph. “I thought our defense was good for at least 30 minutes and I thought we kind of relaxed the last 10 minutes of the game. I give a lot of credit to Kamiyah Street, I thought she was a really tough player to guard. She made a lot of plays for Kennesaw State. But if you look at the balanced scoring — hopefully that’s something we’ll be talking about all year because when someone is having an off night, it’s really important that somebody else steps up and gives the team a lift.”
How It Happened
Tech (3-0) claimed its first 20-point lead before the end of the first quarter as Kennesaw State (0-3) burned three timeouts in the first half of the game. The Jackets opened a double-digit lead when Kaylan Pugh and Zaire O’Neil combined for a 13-0 run midway through the first frame as the Owls were held to four points over the final seven minutes of the opening frame. Tech opened the second quarter with a 6-0 spurt that opened a 24-point advantage and back-to-back three-pointers midway through by Francesca Pan and Antonia Peresson pushed Tech’s lead out to 39-13 with 5:01 left in the half. The Jackets led 48-21 at the halftime break.
A free throw from Pugh opened a 30-point lead for the Jackets at the 5:39 mark in the third quarter and Tech would never allow the Owls to come closer than 30 points the remainder of the game.
Tech Tidbits
* The win moved the all-time series record to 11-0 in favor of the Jackets
* O’Neil led all scorers with 16 points and finished with a double-double behind 10 rebounds
* Tech finished 23-of-32 from the charity stripe and shot 41.1 percent (29-70) from the field
* The Jackets dominated on the glass, out-rebounding the Owls, 52-25
* On 29 made field goals, the Jackets dished out 18 assists led by Imani Tilford with five and Peresson with four
* Three Jackets (Scott, Tilford, Pugh) each recorded four steals in the game — Tech finished with 19
* KSU was limited to a 33.3 percent (16-48) shooting efficiency
Next Up
Tech returns to play at Princeton this Sunday, Nov. 19. Tip is slated for 1 p.m. on ESPN3.
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